Once Bitten, Twice Shy

The scene in the lounge was beyond what Samantha expected.

She initially expected to see some unsightly scenes of amorous congress, but Timothy turned out to be leaning against the reclining chair instead of the bed.

His coat and tie were taken off, while a couple of his shirt buttons were undone. He seemed to be in a relaxed state.

However, he was closing his eyes tightly and he seemed to be in pain judging from his tensely wrinkled facial features.

Two slender silver needles were placed on either side of his temples, and more were inserted on his head at different acupoints.

Harmony sat at one side and stared intently at Timothy. She seemed to be saying something to him but her voice was too low for Samantha to hear anything.

What...was Harmony doing?

Samantha suddenly thought of the last time Timothy choked her and had a headache thereafter. He had a similarly painful expression then.

Was Timothy suffering from the same headache?

Judging from the number of needles inserted in his head, Samantha wondered if Harmony was the one who helped insert them. Was she using acupuncture to help heal his headaches?

Acupuncture was a very frequent practice in the orient, but when did Harmony even learn to do that? Did she learn it especially for Timothy? Or was there some other reason?

Everything just seemed off to her for some reason.

She had the feeling that things were not as simple as they seemed.

What was Harmony whispering?

Acupuncture did not require a person to chant mantras or anything of the sort.

She moved forward subconsciously to go over and hear what Harmony was saying.

Samantha was already treading very lightly and did not make a single sound, but she only managed to take a few steps when Harmony seemed to have noticed something. She turned around suddenly and looked out.

Harmony even asked coldly, "Who's there?"

Samantha's heart skipped a beat.

When did Harmony become so alert? It was like she had eyes behind her head!

Fortunately, Samantha reacted quicker and turned around at once. She then quickly ran out of the CEO's office but did so as softly as possible.

When she heard the sound of footsteps following her, she bent down in the dark and went back into her office under the cover of a random desk in the office lobby.

Fortunately, she had already memorized the place by heart those few days and was very familiar with the place.

Samantha leaned against the door panel and heard Harmony's footsteps circling the hall before finally stopping in front of the deputy CEO's office door.

Samantha held her breath

She was not afraid of being caught by Harmony because it was not as though Harmony could do anything to her after catching her.

However, being caught would alert Harmony for sure, and that would only cause Samantha to go back to square one after finally making some progress in gathering clues.

One second passed, then two, then three.

Harmony did not push the door in but turned to leave.

The sound of her footsteps gradually became further and further, until finally the door to the CEO's office was heard opening and closing. Samantha put her hand over her heart and breathed a sigh of relief.

Since they were both women, Harmony's reluctance to go into Samantha's office probably stemmed from certain psychological influences.

Samantha did not like seeing Harmony and did not want to step into her territory either. That was the same for Harmony.

Whenever Harmony came to the Barker Group in recent days, she always took a detour even when passing by Samantha's office, so it made sense that Harmony would not step foot inside.

They hated each other to the bone and were disgusted with each other too.

Staying there for too long was risky, so Samantha waited for another five minutes. Once those five minutes were up, she opened the door gently and treaded softly through the hall and into the elevator.

She took the elevator to the floor of the surveillance room and switched back on the surveillance cameras on the top floor. After that, she went down and drove away.

Rochelle was already at the apartment by the time she returned after coming back just moments earlier with a myriad of late-night snacks.

Samantha entered the room and washed her hands before sitting down at the dining table to eat.

Rochelle was stunned for a moment and needed some time to regain her senses. "What's...going on with you, Sammy? How many days haven't you eaten?"

Her appetite had always been small and it was rare to see her looking like a starved person.

Samantha finished the last mouthful of porridge before putting down the spoon.

She looked up at Rochelle and smiled slightly. "My mind is a bit of a mess right now. I wanted to eat something to suppress my shock."

"What's wrong?"

Rochelle's face suddenly became solemn. She knew that Samantha was going to Timothy's office to search for the drugs that night, and her first thought was that Samantha saw that scumbag doing something unsightly with that pretentious b*tch Harmony.

"Did you…catch them in the act?"

Samantha shook her head with a complicated look. "No. I saw...a couple of scenes that I can't seem to figure out."

"Huh? What do you mean? They can't be…doing some acrobatics in the room, right?" Rochelle was puzzled.

Samantha was speechless.

Had she been in the mood to laugh, she would have laughed herself to death after hearing Rochelle's remark.

'Why stop at acrobatics? You might as well say that they were doing stand-up comedy too.'

Samantha calmed herself slowly at that moment and sorted out the images in her mind while recounting what she had seen.

She initially guessed that Timothy's temperament had changed greatly because he suffered from having multiple personalities. To that end, she went to the office to find his medicine to prove her theory.

Rather than finding any medication, she saw Harmony giving him some acupuncture to treat his headache.

According to Ronald, Timothy had no health issues and was still as healthy as ever. That was a direct contradiction to the apparently severe headaches he had.

In that case...what if the acupuncture was not to cure Timothy's headache but for another reason?

After all, if it was just purely acupuncture, there was no reason for Harmony to murmur all those words.

What was Harmony doing?

Samantha could keenly sense that there would be a huge breakthrough on the mystery surrounding Timothy as long as she could figure out what Harmony was doing.

There would finally be answers to many of her questions.

"Then we need to find more information from Harmony's end, right?" Rochelle frowned. "I spent so much manpower and financial resources to investigate Harmony but didn't find any useful information! Everything was covered up so well."

Samantha had a frown too.

Rochelle's remarks seemed to shatter that theory.

Rochelle thought of something and said again, "You know that psychiatrist, don't you? Why don't you ask him what this is all about?"

Samantha shook her head helplessly. "This alone probably won't be enough for Dr. Dancy to give me a definite answer."

After all, he was not some god who only needed a glance to know what a person was doing.

Rochelle frowned. "Isn't there any other way? You have finally found some useful clues."

Samantha's hand grasped the tabletop gently.

It was already very late at night. Samantha tossed and turned on the bed after Rochelle left.

Samantha was considering various methods she could use to investigate, but it seemed that every one of them had flaws.. After thinking about it for a long time, a figure appeared abruptly in her mind.